Video as Help
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Douglas Troy wrote:
professional actors
So you move beyond showing just the application screens or powerpoints?
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
So you move beyond showing just the application screens or powerpoints?
Rama - I stand corrected (I went and double checked what I just said was accurate), the office work-flow stuffs are still just video of screens & audio, with no actors in the shot. A recent video that was shot using a professional production company with actors, were introduction and training videos for our 3D imaging systems. Also, I am sending an Email to our marketing guy that deals with this stuff, and I'll shoot you an Email with what we use and the name of that company; just in case you find yourself in need ... There is discussion about changing how the current Training Videos are done, to include persons (and again, I will continue my endless struggle to get Jessica Alba hired for this).
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTLmodified on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 2:27 PM
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Emil - Gabriel wrote:
Will it be on youtube?
Trust me, if they get Jessica Alba in my office, you guys will NEVER hear the end of it. :rolleyes:
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
I was involved in a few bits of research after the attempts to do this with live video had turned into nice little disasters and I found something that's quite useful once you understand the interface: Demo-builder 7 from these guys over on http://demo-builder.com/[^] It allows you to do record your actions as you work through a program, at changes in the interface it takes a screen capture minus the cursor, which it animates in it's own system which you can completely change to suit your needs. You can toss in text boxes, audio, or make it interactive with buttons all of which are used to create a flash file. If you're doing it for internal training purposes they also have a quiz builder which is pretty nice and can be easily integrated with .net so long as you are careful certain configurations of it. It was pretty handy and I wound up writing an application around it for delivery of the flash files it produces to customers and new employees. For me it beat the attempts at getting the 'perfect' screen capture which always varies from manager to manager, you record it once, and then animate the cursor however they want it, add in little messages, and get the entire lesson covered with having to edit 'ohh' and 'uhh' out of the audio.
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I do it and as an added feature I have it hooked up to the help system where it is streamed from the server. It cuts down training time to next to nothing and they have the added plus that introduction of the application to new employees is a cinch. In my opinion, its certainly worth it.
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
t cuts down training time
That might convince me.
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
We are using them to demonstrate hardware setup, and we also use some screen vids for demonstrating specific software features and "lok how easy this is" walkthroughs. We opted against audio and use text screens and subtitles instead. Production is much cheaper, it is much easier for non-native speakers to follow, works better with skipping ahead and going back, and last not least download sizes are smaller. Example Movie here[^] They are a success for workshops where you can tell additional to the video - partly because the stuff we do is interesting (at least to people who come to our workshops), and partly because people can point out the bald spot at the back of the head of the boss. Also, our asian distributors like them. I don't know how many people actually use them personally to learn about the product. Personally I dislike them, as they are static. Videos with asmateruish audio - like channel 9 - make me want to cry and stab someone. anyone. Not good. Still, I think they are a good investment even though I was the one who warned they might be not such a good idea.
Start with a storyboard. You need a ok camera (easy) with a tripod, multiple good light sources and white sheets to create ambient, consistent light. Post processing - cutting and adding text / subtitles - is a good job for a student or school boy/gal, since it's something they consider "fun". Final quality depends a lot on this, though.
Don't attribute to stupidity what can be equally well explained by buerocracy.
My latest article | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist -
How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
Yes we've been doing videos which are basically screen captures with text bubbles and no audio and focused on specific tips tricks and tutorials but subtly sneaking in basics on how to use our software and they are *far* more widely used than the complete hundreds of pages manual or the FAQ or the web site help or the f1 help or the online forum. Basically you can't go wrong assuming most of your users are not only illiterate but almost vehemently opposed to reading more than one line of text at a time. We just peruse our support emails and forum postings and find the most frequently asked areas, compile it all and make videos to satisfy the most common issues with a few absolute beginner "Start here" kind. The worst part though is you can't ditch the manual even though it's 10 times more expensive to produce (properly) and used by only 10 percent of your customers because those 10 percent would get *very* angry if it wasn't there and the other 90% want to know it's there even though they will never read it. Just want to add after reading some of the other comments that I don't think it's in any way necessary to have an actual person appear in the video. Also we don't have speaking in ours because our software is used globally and people have a much harder time parsing a foreign accent than they do reading English text (also we are all embarrassed about our recorded voices). We get great response from ours and we use nothing more than a screen capture to video utility which we can then edit and insert text bubbles and it produces a flash enabled page ready to click on.
"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it." -- Lore Sjöberg
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Yes we've been doing videos which are basically screen captures with text bubbles and no audio and focused on specific tips tricks and tutorials but subtly sneaking in basics on how to use our software and they are *far* more widely used than the complete hundreds of pages manual or the FAQ or the web site help or the f1 help or the online forum. Basically you can't go wrong assuming most of your users are not only illiterate but almost vehemently opposed to reading more than one line of text at a time. We just peruse our support emails and forum postings and find the most frequently asked areas, compile it all and make videos to satisfy the most common issues with a few absolute beginner "Start here" kind. The worst part though is you can't ditch the manual even though it's 10 times more expensive to produce (properly) and used by only 10 percent of your customers because those 10 percent would get *very* angry if it wasn't there and the other 90% want to know it's there even though they will never read it. Just want to add after reading some of the other comments that I don't think it's in any way necessary to have an actual person appear in the video. Also we don't have speaking in ours because our software is used globally and people have a much harder time parsing a foreign accent than they do reading English text (also we are all embarrassed about our recorded voices). We get great response from ours and we use nothing more than a screen capture to video utility which we can then edit and insert text bubbles and it produces a flash enabled page ready to click on.
"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it." -- Lore Sjöberg
John C wrote:
The worst part though is you can't ditch the manual even though it's 10 times more expensive to produce (properly) and used by only 10 percent of your customers because those 10 percent would get *very* angry if it wasn't there and the other 90% want to know it's there even though they will never read it.
Very accurate.
John C wrote:
no audio
Do you have any samples available to people who don't have your product?
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We are using them to demonstrate hardware setup, and we also use some screen vids for demonstrating specific software features and "lok how easy this is" walkthroughs. We opted against audio and use text screens and subtitles instead. Production is much cheaper, it is much easier for non-native speakers to follow, works better with skipping ahead and going back, and last not least download sizes are smaller. Example Movie here[^] They are a success for workshops where you can tell additional to the video - partly because the stuff we do is interesting (at least to people who come to our workshops), and partly because people can point out the bald spot at the back of the head of the boss. Also, our asian distributors like them. I don't know how many people actually use them personally to learn about the product. Personally I dislike them, as they are static. Videos with asmateruish audio - like channel 9 - make me want to cry and stab someone. anyone. Not good. Still, I think they are a good investment even though I was the one who warned they might be not such a good idea.
Start with a storyboard. You need a ok camera (easy) with a tripod, multiple good light sources and white sheets to create ambient, consistent light. Post processing - cutting and adding text / subtitles - is a good job for a student or school boy/gal, since it's something they consider "fun". Final quality depends a lot on this, though.
Don't attribute to stupidity what can be equally well explained by buerocracy.
My latest article | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighistpeterchen wrote:
We opted against audio and use text screens and subtitles instead.
Phew! I was expecting it to be in Chinese. I am not sure whether I really like silent movies. But probably it is useful when I want to actually know how things need to be done.
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I was involved in a few bits of research after the attempts to do this with live video had turned into nice little disasters and I found something that's quite useful once you understand the interface: Demo-builder 7 from these guys over on http://demo-builder.com/[^] It allows you to do record your actions as you work through a program, at changes in the interface it takes a screen capture minus the cursor, which it animates in it's own system which you can completely change to suit your needs. You can toss in text boxes, audio, or make it interactive with buttons all of which are used to create a flash file. If you're doing it for internal training purposes they also have a quiz builder which is pretty nice and can be easily integrated with .net so long as you are careful certain configurations of it. It was pretty handy and I wound up writing an application around it for delivery of the flash files it produces to customers and new employees. For me it beat the attempts at getting the 'perfect' screen capture which always varies from manager to manager, you record it once, and then animate the cursor however they want it, add in little messages, and get the entire lesson covered with having to edit 'ohh' and 'uhh' out of the audio.
Distind wrote:
Looks good!
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I think Google did it before they released Chrome. Personally, I thought they were aimed at idiots. Anyway, who needs help these days with anything that is not a software bug?
Remember it is not a bug it is a feature. :laugh:
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
Videos tend to be paced slowly to carry the reader. I want to read, fast, to find the answer and move on. I really don't care about the irrelevant fluff that comes with a presentation. If a picture is worth a 1000 words and video is recorded at 30fps I am basically perusing through 9,000,000 words in a five minute video without a text search feature to quickly find the one sentence that describes exactly what I need. No thanks.
Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
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Videos tend to be paced slowly to carry the reader. I want to read, fast, to find the answer and move on. I really don't care about the irrelevant fluff that comes with a presentation. If a picture is worth a 1000 words and video is recorded at 30fps I am basically perusing through 9,000,000 words in a five minute video without a text search feature to quickly find the one sentence that describes exactly what I need. No thanks.
Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
Obviously, your points are all true. But I was asking about users of the software you develop.
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peterchen wrote:
We opted against audio and use text screens and subtitles instead.
Phew! I was expecting it to be in Chinese. I am not sure whether I really like silent movies. But probably it is useful when I want to actually know how things need to be done.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Phew! I was expecting it to be in Chinese.
Eh!
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I am not sure whether I really like silent movies.
OK, what about "easier to watch in a shared office"? :D At the end, it is a compromise, but I find it a rather good one. If you want to capture your audience emotionally, transfer emotions rather than (or with the) facts, or if you target the MTV crowd, it is virtually impossible to go without audio nowadays (but then, IMO you will need voice actors or someone suitably talented).
Don't attribute to stupidity what can be equally well explained by buerocracy.
My latest article | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist -
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Phew! I was expecting it to be in Chinese.
Eh!
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I am not sure whether I really like silent movies.
OK, what about "easier to watch in a shared office"? :D At the end, it is a compromise, but I find it a rather good one. If you want to capture your audience emotionally, transfer emotions rather than (or with the) facts, or if you target the MTV crowd, it is virtually impossible to go without audio nowadays (but then, IMO you will need voice actors or someone suitably talented).
Don't attribute to stupidity what can be equally well explained by buerocracy.
My latest article | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighistpeterchen wrote:
"easier to watch in a shared office"?
Makes sense. Your video does it's job. I was just thinking whether I will like a video without audio. I reminded myself that these videos are more for instructional purposes and not for entertainment.
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
Apple have videos to demonstrate multi-touch features of the trackpad on MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I'm not sure they're displayed in quite the right place (they're displayed on the trackpad preferences pane), or maybe they should be in the help as well. Having said that, a video's much better than a text description for showing how you drag with a single finger tap on a trackpad...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Apple have videos to demonstrate multi-touch features of the trackpad on MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I'm not sure they're displayed in quite the right place (they're displayed on the trackpad preferences pane), or maybe they should be in the help as well. Having said that, a video's much better than a text description for showing how you drag with a single finger tap on a trackpad...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
Stuart Dootson wrote:
Apple have videos to demonstrate multi-touch features of the trackpad on MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
Yes. I forgot about that. That has been the most helpful video I have seen so far.
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Videos tend to be paced slowly to carry the reader. I want to read, fast, to find the answer and move on. I really don't care about the irrelevant fluff that comes with a presentation. If a picture is worth a 1000 words and video is recorded at 30fps I am basically perusing through 9,000,000 words in a five minute video without a text search feature to quickly find the one sentence that describes exactly what I need. No thanks.
Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
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I think Google did it before they released Chrome. Personally, I thought they were aimed at idiots. Anyway, who needs help these days with anything that is not a software bug?
Emil - Gabriel wrote:
I thought they were aimed at idiots
And you would be right.... that is my user base :-)
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy Individuality is fine, as long as we do it together - F. Burns Help humanity, join the CodeProject grid computing team here
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Distind wrote:
Looks good!
you could also look at Wink http://www.debugmode.com/wink/[^] which is free.
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy Individuality is fine, as long as we do it together - F. Burns Help humanity, join the CodeProject grid computing team here
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Remember it is not a bug it is a feature. :laugh:
djj55 wrote:
Remember it is not a bug it is a feature
No, it's a video! :-D At best, it's a trailer.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”